corner in front, through a yellow glass, and with the use of a hemispherical reflector the light will be diffused gently over the whole. The main light should be from the back, as if from the sunset.

A very interesting study is to copy in your tableaux vivants some famous picture. Choose the actors for the resemblance they are capable of bearing to the subject. You will be surprised to see how the dress of the hair, the lines of the dress, change the appearance, bringing into relief characteristics not easily seen in the habitual costume. How easily one could give in tableaux the "Madonna della Seggiola," by Raphael. Remember that the picture was painted on the top of a barrel, and that the circular frame is as important as the pose of the Madonna. All the lines of the picture are composed upon that circle, and, as composition of line, it is one of the finest things in the world. Arrange the picture with a photograph of the original by your side. Be careful with every fold of drapery, every line of the pose; not one is unimportant. Every finger must be in its right position.

It would be safer, of course, if some one of the company had seen the original, and remembered vividly the tone of green of the mantle and the red of the sleeve. Το make the halo around the head of the St. John, use brass wire. The flame about the head of the infant Christ is less easy to represent, though experiments might be tried with tinsel; but the wire might be substituted, if all else fails.

The flow of unsupported drapery, as in Raphael's Dresden Madonna, in mantle and skirt, can be arranged by means of buckram or wire pinched into the right line; but a person quite unused to the artistic had best not attempt this, though one with a little knowledge may learn much by experimenting in this way. Canton flannel, thick, unbleached cotton, and many cheap materials not too thin, may be made to look like much richer ones if well draped.

There is no end to the charming classic subjects one might give in tableaux, such as "Greek girls laying garlands on the shrine of Cupid," Penelope at her web," "Arcadian lovers with doves." Let the dresses be care

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fully copied from some plates of Greek costume," Flaxman's Outlines," any good mythology with plates, or any of the several works on Greek costume to be found in a large library. The material used may be Canton flannel, unbleached cotton, or merino, or crèpe, with gold borders worked in patterns. For the shrine of Cupid, have a bower of shrubs and a little altar with a burning lamp. Let the statue of Cupid be a boy or youth, dressed in white tights and rubbed

done if your stage were in the loft of a barn. Another way would be to have figures reflected in a mirror, so placed as to reflect again into the mirror of the Lady of Shalott. Another conception of this subject would be effective if a very dramatic person would assume the character of the Lady of Shalott. Let the mirror be placed with its back to the audience. The lady, jumping up from her loom, drags with her the woven web, making confusion; with one hand pressed

with flour, the hair floured or powdered, or a wig floured. Of course, the hair must curl. Romantic subjects, like "The Lady of Shalott" at her mirror with her loom, might suggest a host in the same line, or several treatments of the same,-in order to see, not the face of the lady, but her reflection in the mirror, and also the dimmer reflection of what she sees. The last can be done by means of a trap-door in the stage, and figures below that are reflected in the mirror, which must be tipped forward. This can only be easily

to her heart she eagerly looks in the mirror, and her face must reflect the joy of what she sees, and the coming tragedy.

Many other subjects suggest themselves. such as two lovers getting their fortune told by an old hag in a gypsy camp; or a young cavalier listening to a beautiful gypsy girl, who holds cards in her hand; an old Italian woman, lifting a child to lay flowers on the Virgin's shrine, all the light coming from the lamp that burns above the shrine. A hundred sub

WHILE studying with patience the action of his reapers, Millet produced a figure which had long occupied his thoughts. We know what a serious affair the sowing is to an agricultural people. Plowing, manuring and harrowing are done with comparative indifference, at any rate without heroic passion; but when a man puts on the white grain-bag, rolls it around his left arm, fills it with seed, the hope of the coming year, that man exercises a sort of sacred ministry. He says nothing, looks straight before him, measures the furrow, and, with a movement

cadenced like the rhythm of a mysterious song, throws the grain, which falls to the earth and will soon be covered by the harrow. The rhythmic walk of the sower and his action are superb. The importance of the deed is real, and he feels his responsibility. If he is a good laborer, he will know how much seed to throw with every fling of his hand, adjusting the amount sown to the nature of the soil. I have seen sowers who, before they put foot upon the field, would toss a handful of grain into the air in the sign of a cross; then, stepping upon the

field, they would pronounce, in a low voice, some indistinct words which sounded like a prayer.

Millet had the idea of the sower in his heart without knowing how to define it. Barbizon formulated the work for him, but the scene is laid at Gruchy. Although "The Sower" was conceived and executed at Barbizon, it was entirely with the remembrance of Normandy. In point of fact, the first "Sower" by Millet was a young fellow of a wild aspect, dressed in a red shirt and blue breeches, his legs wrapped in wisps of straw, and his hat torn by the weather. It is not at all a man of Barbizon-it is a young fellow of Gréville, who, with a proud and serious step, finishes his task on the steep fields, in the midst of a flock of crows, which fly down upon the grain. It is himself, Millet, who remembers his early life, and finds himself once more upon his native soil. Later, he made several drawings and pastels of a "Sower," all having the look of the people at Barbizon. The action is less dignified, the man is more weighed down, like the people about Paris; and in order that there should be no mistake, Millet made as a frame about him the

portrait of the country-the old tower and plain of Chailly.

The first "Sower "* (1850) was executed with fury, but having reached the end of his work, Millet found, like Michael Angelo with his statues, that the stuff was insufficient, the canvas was too short. He traced the lines of his figure exactly and produced the twin brother, which appeared in the exhibition which opened at the end of the year 1850. The Salon was then at the Palais Royal. With "The Sower" Millet sent "The Sheaf-Binders." "The Sower" made some noise, the young school talked about it, copied it, reproduced it in lithography, and it has remained in the memory of artists as Millet's chef-d'œuvre. Théophile Gautier was touched by it. In the following quotation we see the impression made by this virile work :

"The Sower,' by M. J.-F. Millet, impresses us as the first pages of the 'Mare au Diable' of George Sand, which are about labor and rustic works. The night is coming, spreading its gray wings over the earth; the sower marches with a rhythmic step,